Now, it seemed to me entirely inappropriate to emphasize Miller's religion when introducing him at a scientific conference. It seemed inappropriate to invite Rev. Ted Peters to give one of the talks. It seemed inappropriate for Eugenie Scott to praise Miller but take a swipe at Dawkins.

For me that was the tipping point. Now, I know it sounds childish to say "they started it" but it's important to keep it in mind. Atheists have kept their mouths shut for years but the attack on atheistic views—and the praise of religious scientists—have escalated in recent years.

I was getting tired of being told that atheists were not welcome but religious scientists were.

The important talk is the one by Rev. Ted Peters, an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran church. He makes the case for Theistic Evolution. Keep in mind that this talk was given at a scientific meeting and most of the audience were scientists. A good many of them were atheists.

Listen to Eugenie Scott's talk as well. I like the bit about "We are not Darwinists." At the end of her talk she presents the case for appeasement: Dawkins bad, Peters good.

As to what is appropriate to discuss at a scientific conference, was it appropriate for the guy introducing the program to be making comments (to applause) about Tom DeLay stepping down? Oh, wait a minute! It was a Public Affairs Forum! Are you really saying that scientists can't discuss public policy? Or they can't discuss how religion affects public policy (whether we like it or not), including how public education treats science? And in discussing religion's effect on public policy, are scientists ears and egos too delicate to listen to a theologian? Please!

As to your claim that Miller's religion was emphasized in his introduction, the closest that I heard to that was the emcee mentioning Finding Darwin's God and stumblingly calling it "a wonderful collection of ideas that connect evolution and religion," a description that may not be all that accurate, but which hardly constitutes "emphasis." Miller does discuss non-science in that he discusses ID. But since he was there to talk about "anti-evolutionary activity" he has to, almost by definition, discuss stuff that is not part of science.

But even then, there was not a single word from Miller about his own theology. He (brilliantly, IMHO) made the scientific case against ID, including the best brief discussion of why irreducible complexity is horsehocky that I've ever seen. Miller, at least, can keep science and theology separate in his mind.

And, BTW, about Rev. Peters' diagram ... listening to his talk (which was the weakest of the bunch) it is clear that the rubric "evolutionary biology (science only)" on the chart designated methodological naturalism. As such, whether it belongs on a diagram about beliefs concerning "Divine Action" is questionable, since it is a methodological stance, not a belief.

In any case, in his talk (and, as far as I know, in his textbooks), Miller stuck firmly to methodological naturalism, without any appeal to gods or theology. If you are demanding that Miller do more when he is discussing science opposed to theology -- that he should adopt a view that, in order to be a scientist, you must hold that naturalism is all there is -- then you misrepresented your position on the diagram before when you said you fell under the rubric "evolutionary biology (science only)." If that is what you are asking, you are, in fact, an ontological materialist. That's a perfectly acceptable philosophy to hold, based, like theism, on no evidence whatsoever (and, therefore, sometimes described as "faith"), if you so choose. But it ain't science.

Scott's point, right at the outset, is that you have to address the subject in light of people's deeply held beliefs and emotions. That seems self-evidently correct to me and a basic fact about dealing with other human beings. It is evident even in the reaction of many atheists' to attacks (or perceived attacks) on atheism. There is nothing more certain to guarantee that they will not listen to the opponent and will, instead, argue against any number of past offenses unrelated to the argument before them, than to question their deeply held belief in and emotional commitment to their atheism. In other words, atheists are just like every other human being that ever existed (myself excluded, just like every other human being that ever existed).

As for the "shot" Scott supposedly takes at Dawkins, it consists entirely of her agreeing philosophically with his materialism but denying that it is a research finding of science. Isn't that the position you told Wilkins you hold -- that you were an agnostic atheist in that you disbelieved without being under the illusion that science demonstrates the nonexistence of gods? Maybe Dawkins doesn't hold the position Scott ascribes to him, but the quote she produced seemed to say exactly that. And if he didn't mean it, then the criticism is rightly made that he should be more careful in his formulations in light of the creation/evolution controversy that he, himself, has joined in.

Anyway, to reiterate, none of that justifies your labeling Miller as an enemy of science or science education. But I do want to thank you for posting the link to that discussion. I found it well worth the time, even if you didn't.

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Principles of Biochemistry 5th edition

Disclaimer

Some readers of this blog may be under the impression that my personal opinions represent the official position of Canada, the Province of Ontario, the City of Toronto, the University of Toronto, the Faculty of Medicine, or the Department of Biochemistry. All of these institutions, plus every single one of my colleagues, students, friends, and relatives, want you to know that I do not speak for them. You should also know that they don't speak for me.

Superstition

Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerlyseemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.

Charles Darwin (c1880)Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Quotations

I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory.

The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.

Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.

The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is TrueI once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000
It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma
One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick
There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins
Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod
The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.